Release Note for experimental packages (on SAS 8.0.x)
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Carlos Gabriel
XMM-Newton SOC
We are releasing two new tasks,psechain and eradial,
which can be added to the SAS suite. Both have experimental character and have
not been yet fully validated. However, we would like to pass them to the SAS
users already, without waiting for the next SAS full release.
psechain, a chain for point source data extraction, is a metatask for
general processing of all the XMM-Newton data corresponding to one observation,
but in particular, for the extraction of scientific reduced data related to one
or several point sources. In practice it is a script for full data reduction,
including signal to noise optimization for point source extraction, which can be
ran interactively.
eradial is a routine to extract a radial profile of a source in an
image field and fit a point spread function to it.
The very wide parameter space of psechain, makes especially difficult
its full validation. On the other side, it can be a very useful tool for fast
XMM-Newton data processing. Both elements constitute the reason for releasing it
now experimentally, without waiting for the next SAS release.
Of course, until a full validation has not been performed on these experimental
tasks, you should take them with a grain of salt!! Any suggestion from your side
for improvement, problems found, etc, are more than welcome!